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astrobei · 2 years ago

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carrying the other one in their arms with byclair 😗

#23 for touch prompts!! (me acting as if i did not beg thea to send me a byclair prompt and as if i did not take forever and a half to write it) (was so intimidated and nervous about this one but i hope you like it !!)

Will doesn’t drink. Like, ever. With the exception of his twenty-first which was kind of a given and also at New Year’s that one time, but that was champagne, so it barely even counted, because who even gets drunk off of champagne? Or, more accurately, sparkling white wine from the supermarket, because they're in college and it's not like anyone has real champagne money right now. Unfortunately.

Anyways, Will never drinks. And that’s the reason why– when he had thrown the front door open ten minutes ago, thrown his bag onto his floor, tossed the keys onto the dining room table, and announced loudly that they were going out tonight– Lucas had immediately resigned himself to the role of designated driver.

Well, not driver per se, because they don’t have a car and the local college bar is, like, five blocks down the road. Designated walker, maybe. Designated sheepdog, because if there’s one thing about Lucas Sinclair’s friends, it’s that they get drunk and fucking scatter.

“What’s the occasion?”

Will is fiddling with his hair in the hallway mirror. “Ugh,” he says, and Lucas catches the corner of his frown as he leans in closer. “Long week.”

“I’ll say,” Dustin pipes up from the living room. “You would not believe the shit my client put me through today.”

“Tell us about the shit your client put you through today,” Mike says, head buried in the folds of a coat as he roots through the closet. “Okay, who took my other shoe?”

Lucas looks down at his feet. “Oh,” he says. “I was wondering why my shoes were fitting differently.”

“Unbelievable,” Mike mutters. “I told you not to buy the same pair as me!”

“But they’re so nice,” Lucas grins, bending down to undo the laces. Mike shoots him the finger.

“Unfortunately, it seems that you’ve just admitted that Mike has good taste,” Will says, which is a very occasionally correct but tragic point, then turns around. “How do I look?”

Dustin squints at him from the sofa. “Um. Normal?”

“Good,” Mike says, still glaring at Lucas as he pulls the laces of the right shoe– tragically, Mike’s right shoe– free. “You look good. Is that jacket new?”

“Kind of,” Will laughs, glancing down at the worn brown leather. “Jonathan lent it to me when he visited last month and I never gave it back.

“Typical,” Dustin calls. “But it’s just a college bar, Will. Who cares?”

“Me,” Will frowns. “I care.” He turns to Lucas. “Look okay?”

“Uh,” Lucas says, promptly letting the laces fall from between his fingers. Will looks good. Like, really good. Unfairly good, because he’d just been complaining about how he’d had the longest week known to mankind and how he’d been up at six that morning to get ready for a meeting with his advisor and then he’d sat through seven hours of classes before spending another three in the library and now it’s seven o’clock in the evening and it should honestly be a little bit illegal to go through all of that and come out of it not even looking frazzled.

Will frowns, snaps a finger in his direction. “Lucas?”

“Don’t distract him,” Mike says. “He still needs to give me my shoe back!”

Lucas finishes toeing it off the rest of the way, and kicks it in Mike’s general direction. It flies through the air, rather ungracefully, if he’s being honest, and lands with a soft thump near Mike’s foot. “There,” he says smugly. “Now give me my other one.”

“So I look awful,” Will huffs lightly. “Message received.”

“I said you look good, Will,” Dustin says, finally slamming his laptop shut and making his way around to where Mike is tossing Lucas’ other shoe– the one that’s blessedly his– over to him. “Jesus, Mike, you’re going to take someone’s head off throwing shit around like that.”

“Sorry,” Mike says, not sounding sorry in the least. “And we did say you look good, Will, so does our opinion just not count anymore, or–”

“Dustin said I look normal,” Will corrects, “and I don’t trust you. You have terrible taste.”

Mike lets out an offended noise. “Hey! I have excellent taste, thank you–”

Lucas doesn’t know about all that, even with what he’d been saying about Mike’s shoes, so he chimes in with, “Well, normally you do look good, Will, so Dustin’s technically correct.”

Will freezes, one hand still buried in his hair. “Really?”

“Oh,” Mike snorts, “nice one, Lucas.”

Lucas blinks. “What? What did I say?”

“You said,” Will turns back to the hallway mirror and smooths down the collar of his jacket, “that I look good. Like, normally.”

Great. Is his throat dry? Probably not any more than it usually is. Maybe Lucas should drink some water. “Well. You do.”

“Wow,” Mike rolls his eyes. “I can’t believe that Lucas has more game than you and I combined, even stone-cold sober.”

“Speak for yourself,” Dustin scoffs. “Sweet, sweet liquid courage will be working its wonders tonight.”

Lucas doesn’t know about all that either, but Will is still giving him a bit of a weird look and suddenly Lucas is really regretting not pawning designated sheepdog off on Dustin as reparations for throwing up in their single shared bathroom for hours on end last time they’d gone out. “Sure,” he says instead, as Dustin tugs his own shoes on, and pointedly does not look over at where Will is standing. “Let’s go, you losers. I’ve got class tomorrow morning.”

—-

Here’s the thing, right. Lucas isn’t stupid. He might be a little dumb sometimes, if any of the things Max or Erica or Dustin say have any merit. But he’s not stupid.

Max says a lot of things, actually, and it’s kind of annoying how many of them land super close to home, considering that she’s currently in school on the other side of the country. But one of those things had been, “College makes people super attractive,” or some iteration of that, over the phone when Lucas had called a couple months ago. And his gut reaction to that had been, like, mild apprehension, because he’d seen the guys in his early morning Psych class, okay, and he didn’t know if he’d classify them as super attractive. Maybe just regular attractive, even though that might be pushing it. Or maybe it wasn’t pushing it so much as maybe they just weren’t his type, and he was being a little unfair.

He’d told Max that too, which, in hindsight, had maybe been a mistake. She’d paused, and then– not even bothering to hide the glee creeping into her voice– said, “Not your type?”

Belatedly– and just one second too late, but enough of a delay for Max Mayfield to hone in on his fumbling, vulnerable self like a vulture descending on a carcass– he’d realized that the appropriate reaction would have been to just call them, like, ugly or something. Unattractive, but entirely separate from his own attraction.

Tragically– as he’d figured out over the next hour and half by means of a very panicked phone call, a very amused ex-girlfriend, and a lot of very hyena-like cackling– the guys in his 8:30 Psych class aren’t unattractive. They’re just not– you know. Attractive to Lucas.

Because apparently that’s a thing now. Guys, that is. Being attractive to him. To Lucas, more specifically. Lucas, finding guys attractive.

Great.

“Don’t sweat it,” Max had assured him. “I told you people get hot in college. You’re gonna notice things.”

Notice things. And after some very dignified squawking on his end of the line, and some more cackling on Max’s end of the line, he’d accepted his sorry, highly amusing fate, and hung up.

So Lucas isn’t an idiot, is the bottom line here. And she was definitely right, and he definitely has been. Noticing things, that is. Things like the back of guys’ necks where their hair meets their skin, and the shape of their arms when they stretch, and the angles of their jaws and noses and shoulders. And, to be more specific, because Lucas isn’t an idiot, and he’s been noticing things– Will’s neck and arms and the angles of Will’s jaw and nose and Will’s shoulders. Especially in that stupid brown leather jacket.

Which is, like, fine. It’s fine! Because people get hot in college and you start noticing things, and Lucas is really, really starting to wish he’d never offered to be the sober one tonight because he would kill for a good spiced rum right about now. Unfortunately, he’s a man on a mission– which he’s already kind of failing, because Mike Wheeler has broken his self-imposed no tequila shots with Dustin rule and now Lucas can’t even be too sure they’re still in the bar.

Will is usually better at being the designated sheepdog than he is, because even drunk, they all seem to know that it’s kind of a low blow to make Will Byers chase them all around town, which is why he ends up doing it most of the time. Lucas would know. He usually is the drunk friends, and he sends a mental prayer of an apology up to whichever divine power might currently be listening, because if he makes it back home with one inebriated friend still intact, he’ll be counting his blessings.

He’s starting to think he might have lost Will too– which would make him go down in history as the worst sheepdog known to mankind– when he reappears at Lucas’ elbow, holding a cup of something in one hand and looking– tragically– very good.

Like, objectively. You know, if Lucas is going around noticing things, he might as well be upfront with himself about it. “Hey,” he says. “What’s that?”

Will looks down at his cup and frowns. “No idea. Mike gave it to me and then disappeared.”

Okay, so as of about ten minutes ago, at least, Mike Wheeler was still in the bar. “Where’s Mike now?”

Will is maybe just the slightest bit tipsy, because he shrugs, says, “Sidewalk,” then throws the rest of the drink back in one go.

Sidewalk. Great. Whatever that means. But it’s fine. Mike is a big boy. He can handle himself.

Maybe.

“Cool,” Lucas says instead, straining a little over the music. “Was he– um. Okay?”

Will grins at him, saying something that Lucas can’t quite catch, and okay, apparently this is another thing Lucas is noticing now. Will has a nice smile. He’s not blind, okay, and it’s not a big deal. It’s just a thing. That is. And it probably doesn’t hurt that the mystery drink and the couple of shots he’d downed earlier seem to be lending him a kind of warm, easy confidence that Lucas is sure hadn’t been there before.

He blinks. “Sorry, what?”

Will leans in a bit closer. He isn’t that much shorter than Lucas, who doesn’t have to bend down much more than an inch to reach his height, maybe two at the most, but he finds himself leaning in more than that, for some reason, meeting Will in the middle just as his cheek brushes up against his own. “I said,” Will repeats, breath warm against his ear, “he was taking Dustin home. He didn’t look too good.”

“And he didn’t tell me?” That beats the whole point of someone staying unfortunately very sober, Lucas thinks, because the whole point was that Lucas was supposed to walk Dustin home after he and Mike inevitably broke their no tequila shots pact and started dry heaving into a bush. “Why didn’t he say anything?”

“Mike looked okay,” Will says, still right up next to his ear. He places a hand on Lucas’ forearm for balance, presses his fingers into the sleeve of his jacket, and adds, “Surprisingly enough.”

That is surprising, because Mike can’t hold his fucking liquor. And still, as surprising as Mike Wheeler not being the world’s biggest lightweight for an evening is, it’s not as surprising as Will sliding his hand from Lucas’ arm and dropping it gently down to his waist.

“Um,” Lucas says, because as far as the whole warm and easy confidence thing goes, this seems to be a little much, considering that Will isn’t exactly the touchy-feely-grabby-in-public type. Even in a strictly platonic sense, this is– “Um. What are you doing?”

Will looks at him, and looks at him, and looks at him, and then he finally cracks. “I gave you my wallet for safekeeping,” he laughs, slipping a hand into Lucas’ jacket pocket and pulling his wallet out. He wiggles it in the air. “Remember?”

Right. Yeah. He had done that, hours ago. “Oh,” Lucas says, feeling suddenly very stupid. Is he drunk? Can you get, like, secondhand inebriation? Is that a thing? Maybe Dustin knows. Lucas makes a mental note to ask him. “Yeah. I remember.”

“I’ll close out my tab,” Will says, pulling away just enough to look Lucas in the eye. His cheeks are a little tinged with pink, which makes sense, because it’s warm in here. It’s very, very warm. Lucas is warm, that’s for sure. Jesus. What had Will been saying?

Right. His tab.

“Right,” Lucas says. Will still hasn’t moved. “Your tab. You should. Um.”

“I’ll close it out,” Will repeats, a little quieter now, as he takes a step back and smiles. “And then you can take me home.”

Christ. Okay.

—-

Some other things Lucas has noticed (because he’s a guy with eyes, and when you’re a guy with eyes, you notice these things):

One. Will looks good in that jacket. Lucas hopes, just a little bit, that maybe Jonathan will never realize it’s missing, and then maybe Will can just keep it forever and ever and wear it every day because it looks good. It’s something about the cut of it, he thinks, because it makes him notice how it pulls Will’s shoulders up and out of his perpetually terrible posture, and there’s something about that confidence– artificial or not– that is just objectively very attractive.

Speaking of attractive things. Two– Will is attractive. There’s probably no point trying to avoid thinking about it anymore, out of some arbitrary fear of making things weird. You can find your friends attractive. That’s not weird! That’s a thing that happens to a lot of people, and Lucas can admit to himself that Will is attractive– without hiding behind the guise of thinking about his shoulders or Jonathan Byers’ choice of clothing– and it’s fine. It’s normal. Will Byers is an attractive guy. Full stop.

Unfortunately, because Lucas is Lucas, the full stop lends itself into turning into more of a comma. Because they’re walking home, right, and Will’s foot catches on an errant crack in the sidewalk, and he stumbles, catching himself on Lucas’ bicep with one hand and clutching at the front of Lucas’ sweater with the other, and in one fell swoop, Will Byers is an attractive guy turns into Will Byers is an attractive guy, and Lucas is definitely attracted to him.

Great.

“Whoa,” Lucas says, reaching out to steady Will where he’s still kind of swaying a bit, trying to get upright again. He grips Will firmly under his elbow and hauls him the rest of the way to his feet, and says, “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Will breathes out, gingerly moving the offending ankle back and forth. “Yeah, I just– tripped.”

“I know,” Lucas laughs, and Will rolls his eyes up at him. “I saw.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Will smiles. He tests his weight slowly, leaning forward on one foot then back again, then lets out a soft noise of discomfort. “Ah–”

“Shit,” Lucas frowns, then tightens his grip on Will’s arm. “Are you hurt?”

Obviously the answer is yes, but Will, the stubborn motherfucker, shakes his head and says, “No, I’m– ow.”

“Nice,” Lucas deadpans, and Will shoves lightly at his chest.

“Don’t make fun of me. I’m drunk.”

Lucas peers at him. Will doesn’t seem drunk, but maybe he’s just really good at hiding it. “Are you really?”

“No,” Will snorts. “Are you kidding? It’s going to take more than three drinks over four hours to get me. I’m just clumsy.”

Lucas knows this already, because they’re roommates. He’s seen Will in the mornings. And in the afternoons, and in the evenings, and in the middle of the night. “Fair enough,” Lucas agrees, then hesitates. “Here,” he pulls one of Will’s arms over his shoulder, “just– lean on me. Like this.”

“Now people are really going to think I’m wasted,” Will mutters, but he lets Lucas move him anyway. Lucas slips an arm around his waist, under his jacket, and pulls him in closer. “I definitely look like I just threw up into a bush.”

A fourth thing Lucas notices– Will is warm, and he’s solid, and he isn’t pulling away, even when Lucas grips tighter, right over the soft fabric of his university sweatshirt. Will lets him hold his weight up without complaint. It’s nice, Lucas thinks. This is nice. “Is that what Dustin was doing?”

“No, but it looked like that’s where it was headed.” Will leans into him a little bit more, the space between them almost gone, and tests his weight on his hurt foot again. “Ah– okay. Okay. I’m fine.”

He most certainly is not fine. Lucas frowns. “No you’re not.”

Will laughs softly, resting a hand over the back of Lucas’ palm, where it’s splayed flat across the side of his waist. “I mean, we’re only a couple of blocks away. What else am I supposed to do?”

“I could carry you,” Lucas offers. It’s partially a joke– because Will is Will, and the chances of him letting himself be carried by anyone are little to zero– but it’s also– well. It’s not not genuine, because Lucas is thinking about that noticing things thing again, and here are the other things he’s noticed, in the last five minutes or so:

One– Will really does not need to be this close to him. Even with the whole leaning on him thing, he doesn’t need to have his face turned into Lucas’ neck, or his body angled towards him this sharply, or his hand still resting atop Lucas’.

Two– and here’s the real kicker: Will hasn’t said no yet.

“Really?” Will sounds surprised, but again– that’s not a protest.

“Uh,” Lucas says, because he really didn’t expect to get this far, but again– he hadn’t not been serious. “Yeah. Yeah! Of course.”

Will gives him a curious look. “You think you could?”

Lucas scoffs. “Please. Look who you’re talking to.”

Will’s not a small guy by any means– and Lucas knows this, because, hey. He has eyes. Either way, Will laughs again, and says, “Right. I forgot who I was talking to. Mister student athlete extraordinaire.”

“I don’t know about extraordinaire,” Lucas says. “But that’s not a no.”

Will gives him another look, and holds his gaze for one, two, three seconds, before caving. “Yeah, okay,” he says, patting the back of Lucas’ hand once where it’s still holding onto his waist. “Why not.”

Lucas grins. “Great. I’m going to need you to turn about ninety degrees that way.”

“Sure,” Will says, turning, “but why– whoa!”

“See?” Lucas doesn’t consider himself to be, like, a douchey gym guy type, but hey. He’ll take his victories where they come. “Easy peasy.”

Will stares, legs bent and dangling almost hilariously off of Lucas’ forearm. “What–

Okay. So he’s enjoying this a lot, actually. Lucas does a little half-squat, just to show off. “Easy peasy,” he says again, and winks.

Maybe that does make him a douchey gym guy type, but it’s worth it, for the look on Will’s face. “Wow,” Will says, eyes wide. “Okay.”

“Okay what?”

“Nothing,” Will blinks. His cheeks are slowly turning red. “You’re just– strong.”

Lucas stops dead in his tracks.

Is he being flirted with, right now? Is that what’s happening? Is Will Byers flirting with him?

He supposes he did start it, after all. “Um,” he says, feeling his own face grow warm. “Thank you.”

Will just nods wordlessly. “Yeah,” he says softly, then clears his throat. “Um. Should we–”

“Yeah! Yeah, let’s– um. Yeah!”

They haven’t even made it half a block down before Will starts up again. “You sure you can–”

“Will.”

“Okay,” Will says, tightening his arms around Lucas’ neck. “Sorry.”

“Thank you.”

It’s really not that bad. They’re close enough to the apartment for Lucas to see the building around the corner, and Will is solid and firm in his arms but it’s nothing he can’t handle. He keeps his eyes fixed firmly on the street ahead of him, though, because for all of his hemming and hawing about being able to carry him and it’s fine, Will, he isn’t sure that he won’t drop him immediately if he catches a glimpse of Will’s face.

Jesus. Okay. This is fine.

They make it all the way to the elevator before they run into a problem.

“Um,” Lucas says, looking up at the metal doors then down at Will. “So I don’t think we’re going to fit.”

They probably will, but he doesn’t want to be responsible for, like, slamming Will’s head against the door and giving him permanent brain damage. “Probably not,” Will agrees, then taps the arm under his legs with a small smile. “You can just put me down, you know.”

“No way.” Lucas shifts him in his arms and puffs out his chest. “We made it this far. I’ve made a commitment.”

“Chivalrous,” Will says, in what was probably intended to be a deadpan, but it comes out a little bit breathy anyway. His cheeks are still pink.

Lucas swallows, and, as the elevator opens up with a quiet ding, says, “Yeah, I know.”

“Go sideways,” Will instructs him, “no, more sideways– yeah, there you go.”

To his credit, Will’s foot only bumps the elevator door, like, the littlest bit. “Sorry!” Lucas apologizes. “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to–”

“Lucas,” Will laughs. “It’s fine. It’s fine!”

“Not very chivalrous of me after all,” Lucas grumbles, as they make their way down the hallway to the front door.

“At least you weren’t the one who tripped and busted up his ankle,” Will points out, reaching into his pocket. “Here– let me down, I’ve got the keys.”

Lucas sets him down, gently, gently, keeping one arm braced around Will’s waist as he fumbles with his pocket, then the lock. Will lets him. He notices this too, with a kind of absentminded, gleeful sense of victory. It feels like one, anyway, how Will is leaning into him even though he doesn’t have to anymore, because they’re home and he can just hobble off to bed and deal with the whole situation in the morning. In the–

Oh, shit. It’s Thursday night, and Lucas has an 8:30 class.

Whatever. Small victories are small victories. He tightens his arm around Will’s waist and waits for him to get the door open.

“So,” Will says, once they’re inside and the door is closed behind them with a soft click. “That was fun.”

Lucas grins. Will’s turned to face him, so he’s not so much leaning against him for support anymore as he is just leaning. “I thought so too.”

“I didn’t think you’d really do that,” Will admits, taking a step closer. He places a hand on Lucas’ upper arm, the same arm that’s still resting on top of Will’s university sweatshirt, under the stiff leather of his jacket. “It was very gentlemanly.”

“Next time we go out, I’ll lay my jacket over a puddle for you,” Lucas whispers, and Will laughs gently.

“I’d appreciate that.”

“Seriously,” Lucas adds, “you should ice that, or something, because it’s going to be so bad when you–”

Wake up tomorrow was what Lucas had been about to say, and then Will cuts him off with a kiss.

Things Lucas is noticing, added on to the end of an ever-growing list, apparently: Will Byers is a damn good kisser.

Lucas isn’t too sure where that came from, and also he can’t really find it in himself to care, because Will’s lips are soft and his hair is even softer, and up close he smells like fresh air and men’s cologne, and Lucas notices all of these things with far less lucidity than he’d been keeping tracks of things with before. Then, the list of things goes flying out of his head and it’s just Will– warm even though it had been so cold outside, in Jonathan Byers’ stupid leather jacket, and Lucas makes a vague mental note to buy him a brand new one, so he never again has to think about Will’s brother while kissing him.

Again, he thinks faintly, a little bit giddy at the thought, clutching at Will’s waist as he sways lightly, a little unsteady on his injured foot. Again. He’d like to do this again, except maybe without the melodrama and the injury and– whatever happened to Mike and Dustin.

“Gentlemanly,” Will murmurs again, as he pulls away. It’s barely loud enough for Lucas to hear, even though they’re just a few inches apart. Will’s eyes drop down to his mouth, once, then back up to meet his gaze. He bites back a smile, eyes sparkling. “I stand by my previous statement.”

Oh, god. Max is going to have a fucking field day with this one.

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